UN Officials Show PA Spirit, Bash Israel

United Nations officials continue to raise serious questions about their claim to being a neutral arbiter as they continue to bash Israel.

By Gabe Kahn.

First Publish: 11/29/2011, 10:33 PM

UN Chief Ban Ki-moon

Israel News photo: Flash 90

The United Nations on Tuesday continued to demonstrate it is not an honest broker in the Israeli-Arab conflict as senior UN officials marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that a Palestinian state was "long overdue," in an official statement released by his office.

"The need to resolve this conflict has taken on greater urgency with the historic transformations taking place across the region," Ban said.

Ban said a solution to the current impasse must be found that results in two states based on the 1967-lines with Jerusalem as their shared capital.

The statement from Ban's office presupposes the maximalist demands of the Palestinian Authority as the only possible formula for a final status agreement.

Ban praised the accomplishments of the Palestinian Authority, claiming that the Ramallah government is "institutionally ready to assume the responsibilities of statehood."

He did not address the ongoing corruption probes that plague the government of PA prime minister Salam Fayyad or that the PA is dependent on foreign aid and on the verge of fiscal insolvency.

Instead, Ban called on both sides to return to direct negotiations, while at the same time adopting PA rhetoric that Israeli construction in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem constitute a "major obstacle to peace."

Ban was not alone in his celebration of one-sided, anti-Israel rhetoric.

Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on "the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967" condemned Israel as a rights violator and occupier.

"Every year, on this International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, we are reminded of Israeli authorities’ invidious schemes to permanently empty Palestine of Palestinians.

"This prolonged human catastrophe must be brought to an end once and for all," a statement said.

UN observers note that even Falk's title at the world body presupposes the PA position from the outset, raising serious questions about how the United Nations can claim to be a neutral arbiter when it has demonstratively been co-opted by the Palestinian Liberation Organization's propaganda machine.

Israel maintains territories captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War cannot be defined as “occupied” as they were never a part of a sovereign state. Rather, Jordan seized Judea and Samaria – and Egypt seized Gaza – when the Arab world sought to destroy Israel on the eve of the nascent Jewish state’s independence in 1948.